What If?

When I wrote "THE ALTERNATIVE," my question was, What if one person did something differently? Could the USA Civil War have been averted? Since that time, I have been asked to write something about American Aboriginal History, but was waiting for the right "what if" question. Today it came to me. What if the Americas had discovered Europe? Perhaps the violent nature of the Europeans had caused a delay in the development of ships. Thus, one hundred years later, the American people had a shipping industry that could reach Europe. What would their impression be of these warring Europeans? Would these ones have aided the original explorers the way the original inhabitants of this land helped the first European settlers?

When I write, I must get into the heads of my characters. If I refer to actual figures from history, I must study their character and have them react to my fictional setting in a natural way. Thus, If I am to write a fictional history where the original inhabitants of this land conquered Europe, I would need to study the nature of the participants of the story and apply my what-if scenario then predict how they would react to that.

The Writing of my first novel

When I wrote “The Alternative” I felt as though I was being guided by the Divine. As I wrote each chapter it was more like I was reading a good novel. I did not know what my characters would do next and I only had a vague idea of the final outcome.

I did much research into the conditions of slavery and I wanted to paint a clear picture of what it would be like to be a slave during the first half of the 19^th century. One theme that reoccurred during research was the idea that many masters acted as their own stud when breeding slaves. I examined how this would affect the daughter of such a slave master. I had invented Mr. Lancer as a very evil man and I did not know how evil he was until near the end of the novel. His daughter had witnessed terrible behavior from her father, but it was later on that she, and I, discovered more heinous acts that he had performed before she was born. Surely this man was beyond redemption, but the plot took still more surprising turns. Could someone so evil ever have such a change of heart or was the goodness of a dying man simply an attempt to buy his way into Heaven? His family and his former slaves had to deal with such a dilemma. The readers are free to draw their own conclusions.

As I examined the conditions that led up to the USA civil war I was often reminded of the final note left by John Brown as he was being led to his execution. On  Dec 2, 1859, he wrote;